Guitar Fails

[kramersteen]

Re: Guitar Fails

I put a devastating scratch on my orange sabre during assembly after i painted it. I was pretty damn cut but i decided i would leave it.

 

[King Halt]

Re: Guitar Fails

Here's a couple of pretty funny/idiotic stories.

http://www.guitarworld.com/eds-shed-some-crazy-stories-my-repair-shop-days

this is from said guitar world post-

" This one is terrifying. Man is buying a guitar cable. He says it’s for his daughter, who has just got her first electric guitar. He’s about to leave when he says, "So, I just snip the end off one end of the lead and fit a wall socket, then?"
"No!" I replied. He thought that the guitar was plugged directly into a wall socket. Imagine that! His daughter could have been fried. I explained the whole concept of electric guitars and sold him a practice amp. Disaster averted, I hope. "

OMFG...i just...i just cant :eek13:

 

[ericmeyer4]

Re: Guitar Fails

Playing into an ungrounded 70s Roland Jazz amp over and over... And kept getting electrocuted over and over... The one time i got electrocuted on my lips from the mic finally made me stop...

Same thing happened to me on a BF vibro champ. Took it to a tech to get a new 3 prong cord put on. He told me to just rotate the plug 180 degrees. No shock and it was quieter. I appreciated he saved me a few dollars.

 

[Securb]

Re: Guitar Fails

this is from said guitar world post-

" This one is terrifying. Man is buying a guitar cable. He says it’s for his daughter, who has just got her first electric guitar. He’s about to leave when he says, "So, I just snip the end off one end of the lead and fit a wall socket, then?"
"No!" I replied. He thought that the guitar was plugged directly into a wall socket. Imagine that! His daughter could have been fried. I explained the whole concept of electric guitars and sold him a practice amp. Disaster averted, I hope. "

OMFG...i just...i just cant :eek13:

I did something similar when I was a kid, probally around 7 or 8. I wanted to boost the output of my handheld walkie-talkies so I took a cord off of some old device and wrapped both leads around the antenna of the walkie-talkie. I then plugged it into the wall and got blasted back quite a few feet. The jolt blew a hole in the antenna the walkie-talkie that thing never worked again. I remember the black mark around the socket in my room was there probably until I moved out, well moved in the basement, I didn't move out until I was 40.

 

[MatelotFripon]

Re: Guitar Fails

My first attempt at modifying a guitar was a disaster ! T'was about 15 yrs ago….
I used an old Teisco/Dana/Harmony/whatever beat-up guitar and just dissembled everything I could into a big pile of parts, wirings, screws….all in one stupid pile ! Took me forever to sand, prime and paint a beautiful off-white…. and just couldn't get to put it back together ! No wonder ! I just left it there, a nice decorative guitar, but lately I took her apart once more, re-sanded it and now, with experience behind me, am planning the rebuild a little more carefully….

 

[exnihilo]

Re: Guitar Fails

Does my whole neverending "experience" as a "guitarist" count? And that's being specific...

cg

 

[astrozombie]

Re: Guitar Fails

Just broken strings during performances

actually no, when I opened for Cristina Perri the people at the venue had a mess up with the mice and my guitar was not hear during the entire set. Only those in the front heard me play.

 

[jimpion]

Re: Guitar Fails

I just attempted my first fret job. I'll let you know how badly I failed once I wire the thing up. It's a Squier strat I got for free... so, nothing lost if I screwed up.

 

[rashayritto]

Re: Guitar Fails

Buddy broke his SG at the neck and gave it to me for free. When i re-set the neck I accidentally made it straight unlike angled gibson spec. Action and string tension are higher now but tonally it sounds great this way

 

[Bludave]

Re: Guitar Fails

I broke 2 strings on the first bend in. A solo about 4 beats into the solo. The guitar was completely out of tune do I was sliding and bending trying to find the right notes. What a disaster. Haha

 

[kraigakerfeldt]

Re: Guitar Fails

when i was 11 and had my squire strat i thought the toggle switch was the whammy bar...

 

[blazingbolt]

Re: Guitar Fails

Recent true story. I was working on a guitar for my brother in law. He wanted a set of 7 string blackouts put into his guitar. He didn't have a 3 way lever switch so I salvaged one.
Wired everything up put the pups in strung it up (Floyd rose btw) and the bridge pickup came to life. Switch to the neck and dead as a door nail. Opened the back and looked over the wiring job. Looked fine but I decided to rewire anyway. Same result. No matter what I could not get the neck pick up to work. This went on for hours. Figured the 3 way lever switch was bad. Got another and the same thing happens. after 2 days of loosing my mind on this, I decided to de-string the guitar and pull the pups because I thought by now the neck pick up must be dead. As soon as I unscrew the pickup ring and pull the pickup out, wouldn't you know, the quick connect cable had come loose from the pickup. I plugged the quick connect in, secured it with electrical tape and bam it came to life. Boy did I feel stupid.

 

[Evil_Pun]

Re: Guitar Fails

Recent true story. I was working on a guitar for my brother in law. He wanted a set of 7 string blackouts put into his guitar. He didn't have a 3 way lever switch so I salvaged one.
Wired everything up put the pups in strung it up (Floyd rose btw) and the bridge pickup came to life. Switch to the neck and dead as a door nail. Opened the back and looked over the wiring job. Looked fine but I decided to rewire anyway. Same result. No matter what I could not get the neck pick up to work. This went on for hours. Figured the 3 way lever switch was bad. Got another and the same thing happens. after 2 days of loosing my mind on this, I decided to de-string the guitar and pull the pups because I thought by now the neck pick up must be dead. As soon as I unscrew the pickup ring and pull the pickup out, wouldn't you know, the quick connect cable had come loose from the pickup. I plugged the quick connect in, secured it with electrical tape and bam it came to life. Boy did I feel stupid.

done that, that is how I grew to hate the quick connect system. On the plus side I managed to ruin 2 import style three way blade switches after having the worlds largest brain fart and wiring the switch so it operated backwards countless times. I did successfully install a blower switch but everything else made me give up guitar repair for a while.

 

[Doctor Doom]

Re: Guitar Fails

I was adding a third switch (to switch from neck-to-neck) on my doubleneck and after finishing soldering and wiring everything, I plugged it in and it didn't make any sound. Cursed myself and the guitar out for a while, then luckily before I decided to take it all apart again and find out what's wrong I noticed that all of the pots were turned down to 0:argh:

 

[MatelotFripon]

Re: Guitar Fails

That's hilarious !!! The toggleswitch !!!!
I almost can image it !!

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: Guitar Fails

I've experienced multiple gigs where I haul the equipment in, set the mic up just right, put it into the channel the sound guy told me to, did sound check, play a 1-2 hour set, and later find out the dufus never turned up the channel in the house.

 

[ThunderLizard]

Re: Guitar Fails

The only fail I've had was after doing a pickup swap. I always do it sitting on the floor with the guitar on my lap. I set the soldering iron down, put the guitar on a stand and start to get up. I put my hands down beside me to push myself up, my left hand wound up right on the soldering iron. It took a second to feel the searing pain as I was raising up, I yelped, yanked my hand off the iron which pushed the iron over, I plopped back down and yow! I wound up sitting on it. I wound up with a 3rd degree burn on my hand and only a first degree on my bum. Boy did that burn my....never mind... But true story. :laughing:

 

[GoldenVulture]

Re: Guitar Fails

I had a mate back in the 80's that wanted to show off his late sixties ,mint condition strat that he had just aquired. I went over to his place and checked it out, lovely strat. He hit me with an issue while I was there. He wanted to play it through his amp but he'd misplaced the speaker cord. Seeing the Amp and Speaker box were both standard jack plugs I suggested he use a guitar cord until he finds his speaker cord. So he did that and it worked fine. Before I left I said to him very clearly " if he unplugged the guitar and the speaker box and then later plugged back in, Don't plug the guitar into the speaker out put of the amp [ Get the cords mixed up ]". Within days he managed to do exactly that and blew up one of the pickups.
What a Genius.

 

[synzzzer]

Re: Guitar Fails

The only fail I've had was after doing a pickup swap. I always do it sitting on the floor with the guitar on my lap. I set the soldering iron down, put the guitar on a stand and start to get up. I put my hands down beside me to push myself up, my left hand wound up right on the soldering iron. It took a second to feel the searing pain as I was raising up, I yelped, yanked my hand off the iron which pushed the iron over, I plopped back down and yow! I wound up sitting on it. I wound up with a 3rd degree burn on my hand and only a first degree on my bum. Boy did that burn my....never mind... But true story. :laughing:

Okay that beat my hand getting burnt story that I just posted a few posts back (in this thread.) That beats it by a lot.

 

[cwebb]

Re: Guitar Fails

I at one point plugged into my line 6 (no hate please, I have upgraded to a real amp :lmao: ) and i would play and it would cut out a few seconds later, restarted the amp and switched channels multiple times, only to find out the food controllers volume was turned down!